Exploring a sense of place through the examination of light and silhouettes and their integration into a unique lightbox, this project serves as an educational resource and a personal expression by artist and educator Sarah B. Pohlman.
In the spring of 2009 I had the opportunity to teach a class of 8 very talented high school students through the Pre-College Saturday School program at The University of the Arts. They challenged themselves and pushed collage and printmaking techniques beyond traditional limits. Check out their work here.
Stray Light - Lightbox Series
For our "Shaping Meaning" project I created a lightbox with a collaged citi-scape as the backlit image. I had never made one before, so it was an experimental process for me - from planning out the actual box constuction, to exploring lighting options, to creating back-lit collage imagery. The imagery is created from layered papers adhered to plexiglass and can be seen in progress below.
I've been working on a series of artwork that explores very specific moments of clarity in my life. They are very hard to explain, and don't happen very often. But they are rare and beautiful moments when the world seems to make sense, and I feel some sort of "cosmic giggle" so to speak.
One such moment occured when I was picnicking on a roof at night with some friends. Glancing over the city I watched lights flicker on and off in the expanse of buildings. People were coming home from work, putting their kids to bed, opening a bottle of wine, ironing, arguing, making dinner, having affairs, singing in the shower and on and on. I felt incredibly small and humbled and glad to be alive.
Sense of Place Educational Tutorial
Stray Light Exhibition
Join me for the opening reception of Stray Light and New Dimentions at Smile Gallery. Light boxes created in conjunction with this project will be featured in the exhibit!
The opening reception will be held on May 8, 2009 from 6 - 9 pm
The show runs May 8 - June 9, 2009
Smile Gallery is located at 105 S. 22nd Street, Philadelphia, PA
For more information on the artist, visit sbpohlman.com.
I think this is a really ambitious project and you'll get some great artwork out of it! You already have. I love the concept and the images are wonderful. The last image has a very dream-like quaity and I love the aspect of light. How big to you plan on making the lightbox?
Excellent! I think the transition process is very interesting. I want to watch the changes. Great textures and overall effect. I tried to do something similar. Can you tell me how you did it and how you transferred it onto your wiki?
I used a program called unfreeze.exe (free download) to create the gif. It pretty much still images dropped into the program and it lets you decide how long each frame lasts for. its super easy and free!
Comments (8)
Jennifer Welsh said
at 6:43 am on Mar 1, 2009
I think this is a really ambitious project and you'll get some great artwork out of it! You already have. I love the concept and the images are wonderful. The last image has a very dream-like quaity and I love the aspect of light. How big to you plan on making the lightbox?
Kristin Brown said
at 12:40 pm on Mar 1, 2009
I really love the idea! The use of paper and then backlighting it creates this whole other dimension to the piece.
Gabrielle Boyce said
at 3:25 pm on Mar 1, 2009
Love this!
spohlman said
at 8:26 am on Mar 3, 2009
Thanks all - the box will be approximately 12 x 12 x 3 inches when its done.
Marie L. Max-Fritz said
at 2:49 pm on Mar 9, 2009
Excellent! I think the transition process is very interesting. I want to watch the changes. Great textures and overall effect. I tried to do something similar. Can you tell me how you did it and how you transferred it onto your wiki?
spohlman said
at 1:08 pm on Mar 16, 2009
I used a program called unfreeze.exe (free download) to create the gif. It pretty much still images dropped into the program and it lets you decide how long each frame lasts for. its super easy and free!
spohlman said
at 3:23 pm on Mar 16, 2009
Download here http://www.whitsoftdev.com/unfreez/
Monika said
at 1:04 pm on Mar 22, 2009
The changing of textures is great, even when not lit. However, the lit image is so effective and moody, I can almost imagine the mist rolling in!
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